Wirecutter supports our readers with thousands of hours of reporting and testing to help you find the stuff you need in order to live a better life. You support us through our independently chosen links, which earn us a commission. Read more about what we do.

Real Talk

Advice, staff picks, mythbusting, and more. Let us help you.

Let’s be mindful together about this new Apple stuff

June 11, 2012

Brian Lam

Apple just came out with some upgrades to their computers and gave the world a look at the new tricks that macs, iPhones and iPads will soon be able to do. It’s exciting to think about all the shiny new gear but here’s a sober look at what will make a difference in your life.A new High Res Notebook: There’s a next generation 15-inch Macbook Pro that has a super high-resolution display that has more pixels than most 27-inch monitors. That is useful for working from the field and getting enough desktop space to fit lots of windows side by side, but I don’t know how readable that is going to be. It’s a 15-inch notebook that is about as thin as a Macbook air, weighs as much as a lot of 13-inch notebooks (4.6 pounds) and has no optical drive. It’s surprisingly not as expensive as I thought it would be at the $2200 starting price. But then I remembered it’s not 2002 and lots of solid laptops cost around a grand and change. Here’s the thing: Since it has got a lot of hardware built from the ground up, you should wait a few months to get one if you are really interested while they shake the bugs out. That’s it.

Old Reliable Gear Getting Upgrades:

It’s not as sexy but chipset upgrades to these pieces of time tested gear are really important.

The MacBook Air notebooks get Intel’s neat Ivy Bridge chipsets which are mildly faster but more energy-efficient. They’re also $100 cheaper than the old ones, so they start at around $1000 for the 11-incher and go from there. They look the same. (Specs: they have USB 3.0 ports, can have up to 8GB of RAM, up to a 2.0GHz of CPU and 512GB of SSD storage.)

MacBook Pros? They also get Ivy Bridge chipsets. They’re a little bit faster. They start at $1200 for the 13-inch notebook and jump up a lot from there for the 15-incher. It looks like the 17-inch laptop is gone from the line up. (Specs)

The Mac Pro has been given a much-needed update as well. Professionals might be bummed about the Pro’s strange lack of Thunderbolt ports, but even a minor update is better than nothing.

Image courtesy of The Verge.

The New Apple Operating System: It’s called Mountain Lion, and it’ll only cost you $20 when it goes on sale in July. For the number of new features that the upgrade brings with it, that’s a crazy good deal. For starters, Apple’s improved iCloud service will allow for a smarter sharing of files between iPads, iPhones and the Mac.

Image courtesy of The Verge.

iOS’ Notification Centre is also making the jump from Apple’s mobile devices to their computers. Tweets, email and other system messages will all be shown in a neat little list. It’s like a blog for all the little important events on your computer.

Siri Dictation been added to the OS, making it possible to dictate text into any app on your computer.

Power Nap is a feature that allows your computer to download data even when it’s in sleep mode. This could be a great way to grab software updates and back up your system when it’s not in use.

iPhones and iPads Can Do New Tricks Too: iOS 6, the software brains of iPads and iPhones, was announced today.

A lot of functionality has been added to Siri. If you miss a call, the service will remind you to call the person back later. You can ask it about sports scores, restaurant ratings and turn-by-turn navigation.

Image courtesy of Engadget.

iOS 6 has a number of Do Not Disturb functions built-in that will let you turn off phone call notifications, select whose calls get through to you, and even put off pushed data and text messages updates. You’ll be able to set a text message to respond to callers in your absence. If it works the way it’s been described, I’ll be a lot less likely to put my phone in airplane mode during meetings and at bedtime.

Image courtesy of The Verge.

Goodbye Google Maps. Apple’s new mapping and navigation software was built from the ground up. It boasts 100 million business listings, Yelp integration and up-to-the-minute traffic updates. Thanks to the Maps app’s Siri integration, users will also have access to turn-by-turn navigation prompts. The new Maps app uses vector graphics instead of bitmaps. That’ll translate to faster map load times.

Image courtesy of The Verge.

Passbook is a new app that act as a central depository for movie tickets, boarding passes and reward cards.

As good as it all looks, I wouldn’t recommend buying anything until the hype that always surrounds new Apple products dies down. Wait until the new hardware is reviewed before resolving to spend any money on it. Hold off on upgrading to Mountain Lion or iOS 6 until the bugs that come with any new OS are worked out.

Regarding the next generation MBP’s resolution: Shouldn’t it behave like a 1440×900 display? The elements on the screen wouldn’t be physically smaller, they’d just have a higher pixel density like the Retina iPhones and iPad. So no negative impact on readability… probably improved readability actually.

I don’t think we have to wait: http://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/features/ The sample comparison screenshots definitely show the on-screen elements being the same size, just sharper on the Retina version.

Reguarding the Mac Pros: I wouldnt say it is acurate that they got a “much needed update”. They were updated…but only with marginlly better CPUs and RAM. The update that was actually needed would have included USB 3, Thunderbolt, 6Gb SATA 3 ports, and new GPU options — all of those pain points still exist with the “new” model.

Key thing to remember with any big new consumer tech stuff — especially Apple’s since they’re master salesmen (Do not disturb as a talking point? Really? They should be ashamed it took them this long…) — is to determine what you actually want out of your device(s) first. Here’s my list of four must-haves in a phone, in order. See if you have any other actual needs, rather than wants.

That’s it. Everything else is extraneous and subject to pricing. To paraphrase Thomas Hayden http://www.marketplace.org/topics/tech/crap-technology-not-crappy, why should I pay for Apple’s advertising when the things I’m actually getting out of my phone are 95%-99% as good on other models that cost far less money. Your mileage may vary.

Anonymous

What smartphones that are even worth mentioning “cost far less money” than a comparable iPhone? The whole “Apple advertising and marketing” garbage is really getting old. Master sales people aren’t so easily discredited as you are trying to do – and that’s because their focus is not on advertising or marketing, really. Anyone can claim to have a feature, Apple claims to do those features right.

One tiny thing: each update (iOS vs. OSX, for instance) is written like they sections are intended to be standalone. Graphically, however, the article is broken up far more by the images than by the bold text that starts each section. My recommendation would be to widen the photos to be inline with the column width (though this would be greatly improved if the images were less tall for users with smaller screens) and to add some space between the sections. I messed around in the Chrome developer tools and made the changes and it looks OK: http://twitpic.com/9vqmu2

Emily

Bryan, do you think you would still recommend the Air over the Pro for the general everyday user? I’m looking at the $1200 13-inch Air and wondering if it’s silly not to get the much more powerful Pro for the same price.

Anonymous

The Pro isn’t that much more powerful, and the SSD in the Air especially levels the playing field a lot. The Air’s 3 pounds versus 4.5 pounds for the Pro is a very noticeable difference in everyday use. The Air has a higher screen resolution, to boot. I’d go Air.

Emily

Thanks!

Anonymous

Fantastic article. Thank you, and I will be among those who will wait.

Wirecutter is a list of wonderful things by Brian Lam and friends, founded in 2011 and a part of The New York Times Company since 2016. Have a question? Just ask.